September 1979 - Abingdon, Oxfordshire

He kicked again. Weakly. His flailing arms quivered and his hands clawed, hauling himself up through the white water. His head surfaced. One more time. One last time.

He gasped a mixture of air and tumbling foam. His bladder released with fear and his chest heaved. He was beaten and he knew it. He had known it as soon as the current had first tugged at him. Drawn him down. Held him. The anger at his own stupidity gave way to grief. A sadness like he had never felt before. As he was pulled back under, he knew his salt tears were being cleansed by the fresh flow of the Thames, yet he saw another river, far away. The gentle Assi. His parents’ restaurant nestled on the river bank. Lebanese cedars sheltered the diners under broad branches and infused the evening candlelight with a sweet, long-lingering aroma. The smell of home. His home.
He saw his mother, smiling down at him as he splashed in the tranquil, gently flowing water.
He laughed with his father in the kitchen. Sitting on a high stool next to open charcoal fires. Watching his father’s hands, fat fingered and huge, yet dancing with dexterity, slicing and rolling the beef, hurling the spices and peppers high into the air before moulding them into the kafta that soon sizzled on the glowing coals with enticing spits and pops.
He saw dappled light, like receding stars, dancing on top of the water. Shrinking, disappearing. His chest was bursting. He had to breathe. He knew it would be his last. He wondered if the water would hurt as he took it deep into his lungs.
‘Ash hadu an la illah ha illallah wa ash hadu anna muhammadar rasullullah’
His thoughts clear in praise for his God. His life at an end. His sadness complete.
ɸ
He could hear someone choking, coughing and retching. Splatters of liquid onto wet mud. Slaps on a back and words of encouragement. A refined, upper-class English accent. Another slap. This time, he felt the impact between his shoulder blades. His eyes opened.
“Come on now, Shafeek. That’s it. Cough it up. Get it out.”
The retching was coming from him, he was the one regurgitating the water. The air, sucked desperately into his lungs, scorched his throat. He coughed and retched again, with a dawning realisation that he was alive. Death had returned him, unwanted and with an imparted truth most would never know. His breathing calmed. His retching subsided.
Finally, able to twist his body, he gazed up to the face of an older boy. Blond hair, dulled dark, hung wet across a forehead that topped Burmese-sapphire eyes. A broad chest was outlined by a clinging, soaked shirt.
“Hello.” The blond boy said and smiled down at him.
“You saved me,” Shafeek croaked the words and tears brimmed anew in his eyes.
“It’s the least I could do. Don’t really think the school would be impressed if a third-year prefect allowed a new boy to drift off to a watery grave. Now would they?”
“Um, no, no I suppose not. Thank you. Thank you so much.” Shafeek began to sit up. The blond boy supported him, reaching strong arms around him.
“Easy does it. No rush. Take your time.”
Shafeek stood slowly and looked around. There were mud trails on the bank closest to him. Deep, wet, ragged furrows that looked like they had been scraped in desperation, a rip in the green of the meadow. Other than that, the rest of the scene was placid. Atypical of an English country idyllic. “You dived in to save me?” He asked, his voice a little stronger.
The blond boy smiled.
“And you pulled us out there?” He asked, pointing to the marks.
“Yes, that’s right. And then you vomited half the Thames up, just there.” The blond boy pointed and laughed. It was a gently teasing, but good-natured sound and Shafeek smiled.
“Who are you?”
“Everyone calls me the Jay, or just Jay for short,” the blond boy answered. “Silly I know, but that’s public school for you.”
“How do you know who I am?”
Jay pointed again.
Shafeek looked down and saw his uniform neatly folded on the ground where he had left it. His name embroidered on the labels affixed to the collars of his shirt and blazer.
“Of course,” he said and managed a feeble smile.
“It’s also how I knew you weren’t intending to drown,” Jay said, reaching out and giving the top of Shafeek’s head a ruffle. “Your towel,” he continued when he saw the younger boy frowning. “I mean, if one was going to top oneself, I hardly think there’d be need for a towel.”
“Top oneself?” Shafeek titled his head in confusion.
“Suicide dear chap, suicide.”
Shafeek was shocked. “Oh no! Absolutely not. I would never-”
“Quite right too. Totally agree. So I assumed you had gone for a swim, but misjudged the current. Terribly wicked just near here. Were you not aware?”
“No,” Shafeek said, shaking his head and looking back to the deceptively calm flow of the river. “It looks like the river that flows past my parents’ house. Gentle and deep, straightened like a canal as it flows to a lock. I saw it when we were being given the tour of the school grounds on our arrival. It reminded me of home.”
“And where’s home?” Jay asked, bending to retrieve the boy’s towel and passing it to him, “Get dried, we can walk back together.”
“Lebanon.”
“Oh dear. All that civil war stuff? It must be frightful. Is that why you’re here?”
Shafeek felt a spike of frustrated anger. It had been an unknown emotion for him on his arrival in England two weeks before. Yet now, such a short time later, he was becoming familiar with it. The assumptions and misconceptions about Lebanon were staggering, but begrudgingly he had to accept that the English were not deliberately ignorant about his Motherland. It was just that all the news stories painted his beloved country as a war-torn hell-hole. He dried himself vigorously while he repeated what seemed to be becoming his mantra, “No. It isn’t so bad. My home is largely unaffected. We live one hundred kilometres north east of Beirut. Up on the border. It is peaceful.”
“Well that’s good then,” Jay said, stripping off his own wet shirt and wringing it out. He lifted the shoes he had kicked off prior to diving into the river and scooped up Shafeek’s uniform. “We’ll cut across the meadow. What house are you in?”
“Circle…” Shafeek hesitated. “Are you going to tell on me?”
Jay faced him. “Of course not. Why would I do a thing like that? Come on, it’s getting chilly,” he said, before striding out for the main school buildings, hidden behind a perimeter of tall oaks.
Shafeek had to trot alongside to keep up. His throat hurt, but not as severely as it had. His mind whirled back through the moments under the water. He knew he had faced death. He knew the trauma of what had occurred would revisit him, but for now, he only felt an overwhelming joy at being granted another chance at life.
Jay slowed his gait a little, allowing the smaller boy to draw level. “So if the war isn’t as bad as it seems, why are you here?”
The question stopped Shafeek like a punch.
Jay continued walking for a few steps before realising he was no longer being accompanied. He turned back. “What’s the matter?”
“You mean why I, an Arab, am here in your school?” Shafeek stood firm and clenched his fists. Since arriving, he had been confronted by a barely hidden racism from a few of his classmates. It was another new experience for him and one he was not willing to bear quietly.
“Gosh no! Nothing like that at all,” Jay said, his eyes wide with surprise. “My best friend in the third year is from Brunei. My second-cousin on my father’s side is from Algeria. I even have quite a good friend on the cricket team who is…” Jay looked around melodramatically, before bending near to Shafeek and forcibly whispering, “Scottish.” He laughed loudly and then more so as Shafeek stared back blankly. “Ah… That joke has somewhat passed you by, hasn’t it?”
Shafeek nodded.
“You’ll figure it out one day soon. But, dear fellow, I don’t care if you are brown, black, blue, Arab, Jew or Gentile. I was just interested, that’s all.” Jay set off through the lengthening grass of the Abbey Meadows...